Ellie Mannette crafting a drum at his workshop in Morgantown, W.Va., in 2006. He was among the first to fashion a steel drum that had all the notes of the chromatic scale, so it could play any melody in any key.CreditCreditvia Mannette Musical Instruments
By Karen Zraick
Ellie Mannette, a Trinidadian musician known in the United States as the father of the modern steel drum, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Morgantown, W.Va. He was 90.
The cause was kidney failure, his daughter Juliette Mannette said.
As a child in Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, Mr. Mannette became fascinated with the bands he saw using trash cans and buckets as drums, hitting them in different ways to create different sounds. For the rest of his life, he sought to elevate and expand the craft of steel-pan music, and to share it with the world.
He became a master tuner, builder and teacher. His shop, Mannette Instruments in Morgantown, is a major supplier of the instruments in the United States, and he trained students in tuning at West Virginia University for nearly 20 years. Numerous American universities now have steel-pan ensembles of their own, some led by Mr. Mannette’s former apprentices.
Replies
Ellie Mannette passed away on Wednesday. Mathematically I knew that I’d probably live to see that day, but somehow I didn’t believe it. Ellie seemed to age without losing his strength, his drive. I guess I started to think of him as immortal. I heard he went peacefully. He was 90 years old. At 89 he was tuning better than ever, and still flipping bass pans over to tune from both the top and the inside. His solo triple pan playing was exquisite and I swear he was still getting better.
By any measure, Ellie was an extraordinary artist. I’ve never known anyone who was so completely obsessed with his work. His favorite activity was tuning pans, and his second favorite was talking about it. He was one of my heroes, along with the great jazz musicians who played five sets a night for months on end, went to after-hours jam sessions, and practiced or composed during the day – literally living the music. That was Ellie. He lived it day and night.
How can we measure his accomplishments? He was there at the beginning – I have a photo he gave me of the Oval Boys beating on paint cans with wooden sticks, with no notes or melodies yet. Three years later they had twelve note ping pong pans playing melody, two and four note background pans, a one note bass. Without formal musical training he came to the conclusion that harmonically based designs would sound better, and he created the double second, triple guitar, and tenor bass patterns that remain standards to this day. But his greatest strength was his drive for perfection. He had a vision for the pan that was always one step beyond what he could already do, and he spent nearly every day of his life reaching for it. He was also driven to be the best and to be known as such, a quality that I often felt must be a heavy burden to bear, but which undoubtedly motivated him.
Ellie mastered the building and tuning of every voice of the steel band, including new designs by other tuners. He pored over minuscule details, constantly experimenting, making small adjustments, searching for the perfect sound. He came up with precise measurements and tuning strategies for every note of every voice in the orchestra. His instruments set standards for balance, warmth, and accuracy that put him in a class by himself. They are a record of the evolution of the steel pan and his legacy will live on in those instruments, like the violins of Stradivarius.
Perhaps his final and most lasting achievement was the transmission of virtually everything he had learned in 70 plus years of pan tuning. He was determined to pass on his knowledge so that his sound could live on into the future, and so that the art form would continue to develop, and he spent much of the last 27 years teaching in Morgantown West Virginia. There is now a group of pan builders and tuners who have spent anywhere from five to fifteen years studying with him, working alongside him and being constantly criticized by him, spending their off hours discussing every aspect of pan tuning with him, living the obsession with him.
We’re going to miss you Ellie – miss your talent, your drive, your stories. But your gift to the world remains with us and wherever you are you can rest assured that you have touched the lives of everyone that has ever appreciated the beauty of the steel pan, and that the fire that burned in you has inspired thousands of others who will keep it alive. Thank you for everything.
Andy Narell
August 31, 2018